Connecting again
This time I'm thinking of Anya...especially the Anya whose past was revealed in the late seasons.
You may already know that stuff...but just in case.
Aud, Anyanka, Anya...that sounds like irregular verbs or a sort of declension !
A Nordic declension of course....
To begin Anya was Aud. We learnt in "Sefless" that she was from Sjornjost, Sweden and was married to Olaf whom she turned into a troll eventually.
I went on reaserch-girl mode and found this: Aud and Olaf are legendary figures from Scandinavian mythology who appear in several sagas.
Aud was the daughter of Ketil "Flatnose" Bjornsson, descended from various Norwegian lords of Sogn, living somewhere around about the Hebrides. In the mid 850s, Ketil married Aud off to Olaf the White, another Norwegian prince. Aud and Olaf had a son, Thorstein the Red. In all of the sagas, the family doesn't work and Aud and Thorstein part ways with Olaf. Aud emigrated to Iceland around 890, refusing to live with either of the brothers who had preceded her to Iceland, erecting crosses along the coast because she has become Christian, and marrying her favorite grandson and heir (whose name was also Olaf !). She died in her sleep during his wedding.
So marriage and wedding aren't good for Aud! Hell's Bells kinda made that point!
Oh and there's a version(don't remember in which saga though) in which Aud wreaks vengeance on Olaf for sleeping around...
So Anyanka, the Vengeance Demon, was part of Aud's personality if we follow the sagas. Also Anya's conversion to capitalism kinda echoes the Saga!Aud's conversion to Christianity. Isn't Capitalism a kind of new religion? Anya was even a bit of a fanatic when it came to money...In a way Xander also converted her, he made her like men again and made her enjoy sex. If Anyanka was Aud's vengeanceful side, Anya pointed out Aud's romantic/erotic side. Above all, Anya was Xander's girl.
Joss may have foreshadowed Anya's past early in the show. For instance we can interpret her joke in "Restless" in different ways.
I usually read it from Giles' perspective because it's his dream. For instance when Willow tells Giles "Do you know this is your fault" I think she's talking about Anya, not about the First Slayer chasing them. Yes it's Giles' fault if a VD became a mortal who doesn't quite understand the world around her. He broke Anyanka's medallion in another reality. He thinks "she's doing quite well", but Anya is still adjusting and it's difficult hence her weird performance on stage and the reactions she got first "you suck".
But a friend of mine from the C&S thinks that the duck with a guy on his ass does have a meaning and that Anya is actually telling her peoples' creation myth. In some Nordic mythology the world was created by a duck who laid an egg. So the duck really does have a man on her ass...a potential man!
That cosmogonic Myth she mentioned several times online(my friend not Anya), can work since it's also Finnish and Finland isn't that far from Sweden after all. And Sibelius used that Myth in "Luonnotar" !
Luonnotar was the primeval goddess, who floated alone in the universe before the world was created "in a solitude of ether". Descending to earth she swam in an endless sea, whipped about by storms. Out of the void a duck appears, looking for shelter in the endless seas. Taking pity, Luonnotar lets it land on her knee. When its eggs hatch they explode, the whites creating the moon, the yolk sunlight, the mottled bits the stars.
Also in the Norse myth there's Eostre who was the goddess of spring and her sacred animal was the rabbit, which symbolised fertility. The eggs and rabbits were pagan symbols of fertility and rebirth of life and the seasons.
So I think that Aud/Anyanka/Anya has always been connected to the idea of rebirth, RENAISSANCE, through the duck and therefore the egg, and through the rabbits. She feared that rebirth, hence her bunnyphobia...
At the end of "Selfless" she got her last rebirth when giving up her powers and her life as a VD. Anyanka became Anya again then, and in a way when the character died in "Chosen" she was accomplished, reversing to her mortal fate, the fate of Aud. She had to die, because Aud wasn't meant to live in the XXIth Century. Season 7 pictured her way back from Anyanka to Aud via Anya aka Xander's girl (they had sex in "Touched") again. End of the journey.